Biobank Assistant/Researcher in Stanmore

Main area Orthopaedic Oncology & Specialist Hip and Knee Unit Grade Band 3 Contract Fixed term: 12 months (12 months) Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Mon-Fri) Job ref 392-RNOH-8372562

Site The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Town Stanmore, Middlesex Salary £30,630 - £32,346 per annum including HCAS Salary period Yearly Closing 01/11/2026 23:59

Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3 rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust.

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust is the largest orthopaedic hospital in the UK and a global leader in our field. We provide a dynamic working environment where we support frontline staff to implement improvements so that we can realise our vision of being a world leading neuro musculoskeletal hospital providing the best patient care and staff experience in the NHS, delivering world leading research, and offering a strong foundation of education, training and career progression. Our dedicated staff come from diverse backgrounds, and our patients benefit from the wide range of experience they bring to the Trust. The RNOH brings unrivalled expertise together in one place allowing us to deliver some of the world’s most complex and innovative care to our patients

• Two sites, one in central London and one in Stanmore - which has recently opened The Stanmore Building, a new, state-of-the-art inpatient facility
• Our Research and Innovation Centre works closely with our main academic partner, University College London
• Further major redevelopment underway across the Stanmore site – improving and modernising our facilities to maintain our position as the UK’s leading centre for orthopaedic medicine
• In the NHS staff survey, over 90% of our staff were satisfied with the quality of care they are able to give to patients - the best result of any NHS Trust in the country
• Our staff also indicated that they had the best experience of appraisals as compared to all other NHS Trusts.

This is a great time to join us and play a critical role in the next stage of RNOH’s journey to achieving an outstanding CQC rating.

Our aim is to remain a world-leading orthopaedic hospital with the best patient care and staff experience in the NHS. To do this, we have four core values that underpin everything that we do. We use our values to help ensure that we are always focused on the things that our staff and patients believe are most important:

• Patients first, always
• Excellence, in all we do
• Trust, honesty and respect, for each other
• Equality, for all

Our annual staff survey results have been improving year on year, with our staff telling us that their experience of working at the Trust is getting better and better. They also indicate that our staff feel very loyal to the RNOH and committed to its role in providing the very best care to our complex patient group. We hope that we can welcome you to our growing team soon.

Visit our Work with us page to learn more about our culture, values and also hear directly from staff in a short video sharing their experiences of working at RNOH

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role. We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants.However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey. Further guidance can be found in the NLPSS Applicant Toolkit https://royalfree.pagetiger.com/cuuomnr/1 .

Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust is committed to ensuring that its recruitment processes are carried out with integrity, transparency, and fairness for all applicants. To help maintain these standards, we ask candidates to provide accurate and truthful information throughout the recruitment process.

If incorrect or misleading information is identified, this may affect the progression of an application, any employment offer, or continued employment. As part of our due diligence, the company may verify the information provided by applicants and take appropriate act ion where necessary.

We do not charge applicants any fees at any stage of the recruitment process, including applications, interviews, sponsorship arrangements, pre-employment checks, or employment offers. All vacancies are advertised through TRAC/NHS Jobs and candidates are assessed solely on their skills, qualifications, experience, and suitability for the role. If you are asked to make a payment in connection with an NHS job opportunity, please treat this as suspicious and contact the organisation directly using the details published on our official career's website.

An exciting opportunity has become available at the RNOH for an individual interested in supporting clinical research within the NHS.

The Histopathology Department is looking for a full-time Band 3 Biobank Assistant to join our research team. The role may involve identifying and approaching patients face-to-face to obtain consent to use their samples for research purposes. The applicant will also ensure that biobanked samples (including blood, plasma, slides, wax blocks, frozen tissues, and DNA/RNA) are logged for ongoing research projects. In particular, they will be responsible for selecting, preparing and scanning slides and linking them to clinical data as part of a cutting-edge digital pathology and machine learning (artificial intelligence) project.

Main duties of the job

The role will allow you to:

• gain confidence in speaking to patients
• consent eligible patients for the Biobank
• use databases and spreadsheets to log, track and anonymise patient samples and data
• support Biobank research across a range of clinical projects
• learn about cancer, sarcoma and other diseases
• collect blood samples by phlebotomy and process them to extract plasma

Support and full training in consenting patients and/or phlebotomy (as necessary) will be provided and for all components of the job in which the candidate does not have experience. The successful candidate will need to become vaccinated against Hepatitis B. Excellent communication and organisation skills are required.

Working for our organisation

RNOH Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust (RNOH) is the largest orthopaedic hospital in the UK and a global leader in our field. We provide a dynamic working environment where we support frontline staff to implement improvements so that we can realise our vision of being a world leading neuro-musculoskeletal hospital providing the best patient care and staff experience in the NHS, delivering world leading research, and offering a strong foundation of education, training and career progression. Our dedicated staff come from diverse backgrounds, and our patients benefit from the wide range of experience they bring to the trust. RNOH brings unrivalled expertise together in one place allowing us to deliver some of the world’s most complex and innovative care to our patients. RNOH is rated good by the CQC and covers two sites, one in central London and one in Stanmore - which has recently opened The Stanmore Building, a new, state-of-the-art inpatient facility. For more information, please access the following link: https://www.rnoh.nhs.uk/

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Selecting, preparing and scanning slides for digital pathology projects.
• Using databases and spreadsheets to collect and organise clinical data and to log and track research samples.
• Preparing samples to be sent by courier, or receiving them from collaborators.
• Pseudonymising and storing patient and clinical trial samples appropriately.
• Identifying, using hospital databases, patients eligible to be approached for donating their tissue for research.
• Seeking consent from patients in person or otherwise.
• Collecting patient samples from operating theatres for research purposes
• Processing blood by centrifugation and aliquoting the component parts of the sample.
• Preparing blood packs and consent forms for colleagues.
• Taking blood samples from patients (phlebotomy) for research: training to be provided.
• Working flexibly between Stanmore and Bolsover St sites as required to contact patients.
• Administrative duties: scanning patient consent forms, pulling and archiving wax blocks and slides.
• Any other duties required to maintain the operation of the Biobank.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Good basic education to GCSE/O levels/A levels/NVQ level 3
• Willing to undergo relevant training
• Interest in/experience of working to a higher level of qualification

Experience

• Ability to work to deadlines
• Experience of working in a customer facing environment
• Previous phlebotomy/laboratory experience

Skills and Abilities

• Basic IT skills - IT Skills (to be tested during probationary period)
• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• Ability to make basic judgement decisions
• Ability to adapt and cope with change
• Ability to prioritise tasks and organise daily work

Knowledge

• An interest in science/healthcare/research related work
• Human Tissue Authority (HTA)

We are committed to equal opportunities in employment and offer a range of flexible working practices. Part-time and job share applications will be considered.

You must already have the right to work in the United Kingdom or fully meet the eligibility criteria for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route. We welcome applications from candidates who require visa sponsorship; however, we can only consider these where all UKVI requirements are met. Before applying, please ensure that both you and the role satisfy the relevant UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) points-based system criteria, as applications that do not meet these requirements cannot be progressed. For more information about the criteria, please click here.

By applying for this post you are agreeing to RNOH transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. If you are offered a job, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR) system and other secure, internal NHS workforce systems.

Additionally, by applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers. Therefore we want you to complete your e‑learning modules prior to joining our organisation.

We reserve the right to expire vacancies prior to the advertised closing date once a sufficient number of applications have been received.

The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.

If you are offered a role with one of the NLPSS partner trusts, as part of pre-employment checks youridentity and right to work documentation will be verifiedremotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a “selfie” using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk

RNOH uses identification scanning technology to confirm the authenticity of documents; all prospective employees of RNOH will have their original documents verified using this technology.

Our organisation does not charge any fees at any stage of the recruitment process.

Applicants should be aware that we never request payment for:

• Job applications
• Recruitment or selection processes
• Interviews or assessments
• Sponsorship, visa or immigration arrangements
• Employment offers or appointment letters
• Training, onboarding or pre-employment checks

Employer certification / accreditation badges

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Name Simon Burn Job title Service Manager Email address simonburn1@nhs.net Telephone number 0208 909 5354 Additional information

For further information regarding the post, please contact ;

simonburn1@nhs.net

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